Canceled Egypt exercise was in planning phase

American commanders were still in the planning phase for this year’s Bright Star military exercises with Egypt, so it wasn’t clear Thursday how many troops or which units will now stay home after President Barack Obama’s cancellation.

Obama said Thursday morning that the U.S. would not take part in Bright Star to protest the ongoing violence in Egypt as its interim government cracks down on dissenters. It’s at least the third time the U.S. has canceled the exercise since it began in the early 1980s — Washington and Cairo “postponed” the 2011 installment amid the Arab Spring and scrapped it in 2003 as U.S. forces were committed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Obama condemns Egypt violence

A spokesman for U.S. Central Command told POLITICO that the last Bright Star, in 2009, involved about 5,000 American troops, as well as units from the United Kingdom, Europe and elsewhere in the Middle East.

“It is designed to strengthen military-to-military relationships and improve readiness and interoperability between U.S., Egyptian and coalition forces,” said Lt. Col. Chris Belcher. “In the past, the exercise has included naval force integration, airborne operations, a land field exercise, an explosive ordnance disposal exercise, a strategic air exercise and a command post exercise.”

The scale of the exercise has varied widely over its history. During the Cold War it could involve many thousands of ground troops, tanks, warships and aircraft. In 2007, a headquarters element from the New York National Guard’s 42nd Infantry Division controlled “a fictitious force of more than 110,000 troops” on a “computer-generated battlefield,” according to the Army.

The close relationship between the Pentagon and Egypt’s military has made Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel a key point of contact between Washington and Cairo; defense officials have described regular phone conversations between Hagel and Egypt’s defense minister, Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi.

Hagel said in a statement that he’d called al-Sisi again on Thursday to reiterate “that the United States remains ready to work with all parties to help achieve a peaceful, inclusive way forward. The Department of Defense will continue to maintain a military relationship with Egypt, but I made it clear that the violence and inadequate steps toward reconciliation are putting important elements of our longstanding defense cooperation at risk.”

Still, although the White House has said it would delay the delivery of four Lockheed Martin-built F-16 fighters to Cairo as part of the U.S. military assistance for Egypt, Obama did not say he would cut off Cairo’s aid, worth about $1.5 billion per year.

Egypt’s military also fields many General Dynamics-built M1A1 Abrams tanks — it aspires to build a force of 1,200 — as well as Boeing-built AH-64 Apache attack helicopters and other American military hardware.